Open dumps in VS 2005

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Jose Antonio - 28 Mar 2007 00:04 GMT

Hi,

I have read in the MSDN that it is possible to open .dmp files as a VS 2005
project. However, I can´t find that type of project in my VS 2005
installation. I have installed VB.NET and C#. Do I have to install VC++ to be
able to open .dmp files?

Thanks in advance.

Jose Antonio.

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Oleg Starodumov - 28 Mar 2007 08:15 GMT

> I have read in the MSDN that it is possible to open .dmp files as a VS 2005
> project. However, I can´t find that type of project in my VS 2005
> installation. I have installed VB.NET and C#. Do I have to install VC++ to be
> able to open .dmp files?

Dumps should be opened using File | Open | Project/Solution menu
(select the dump file in the dialog). Try to open a dump and see if VS will be able
to analyze it.

Signature

Oleg
[VC++ MVP http://www.debuginfo.com/]

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Jose Antonio - 28 Mar 2007 09:18 GMT

Hi Oleg,

Thanks very much for your response. I have tried what you suggest, but when
I open the dmp file (I have to look for it with *.* because in my VS Team
Edition I don´t have any filter for dmp files) VS replies with an error.

The thing is that in the MSDN documentation
(http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fk551230.aspx) it states that dmp
files can only be saved when working with native C++ but it does not state
any restriction when opening the dump files.

What I want to do is to get a dump with the clrdump tool from a WinForms C#
application, and then open the dump to get the exact point in source code
where the app crashes.

Thanks for your help.

Jose Antonio.

> > I have read in the MSDN that it is possible to open .dmp files as a VS 2005
> > project. However, I can´t find that type of project in my VS 2005
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> (select the dump file in the dialog). Try to open a dump and see if VS will be able
> to analyze it.

Reply to this Message

Oleg Starodumov - 28 Mar 2007 12:41 GMT

> Thanks very much for your response. I have tried what you suggest, but when
> I open the dmp file (I have to look for it with *.* because in my VS Team
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> files can only be saved when working with native C++ but it does not state
> any restriction when opening the dump files.

> What I want to do is to get a dump with the clrdump tool from a WinForms C#
> application, and then open the dump to get the exact point in source code
> where the app crashes.

So it probably means that VC++ should be installed for dump analysis to work
(I must say I have never installed VS without VC++, and thus cannot know exactly,
of course). Probably the native debug engine gets installed only if the native
dev tools are installed.

An alternative to VS2005 is to use WinDbg for dump analysis. Since you are
going to debug the dump of a managed application, you will have to use command
line SOS anyway, and it does not really matter much what debugger you
are using.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/03/06/Bugslayer/

Yet another note: with .NET 2.0 it is not currently possible (with publicly available
tools) to obtain the source line information from a dump. It is only possible to get
the call stack, and try to guess where in the sources it is.

Oleg

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Jose Antonio - 28 Mar 2007 13:02 GMT

Hi Oleg,

I thought that with the information of the dump it could be possible to
determine exactly the line of code where the app crashed.

Thanks for your help.

Jose Antonio.

> > Thanks very much for your response. I have tried what you suggest, but when
> > I open the dmp file (I have to look for it with *.* because in my VS Team
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>
> Oleg

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Oleg Starodumov - 29 Mar 2007 08:57 GMT

> I thought that with the information of the dump it could be possible to
> determine exactly the line of code where the app crashed.

Yes, it is possible for native applications, and for .NET 1.x ones.
But AFAIK there is no way to do it for .NET 2.0 apps yet
(with publicly available tools) - because SOS 2.0 does not report
source line information.

Oleg

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vve - 29 Mar 2007 10:31 GMT

I've written a small receipt on how to come to the source line
information from the dump:
http://voneinem-windbg.blogspot.com/2007/03/creating-and-analyzing-minidumps-in-
net.html

In the cases I've looked at for now it works very fine.

Volker

Reply to this Message

Oleg Starodumov - 29 Mar 2007 10:53 GMT

> I've written a small receipt on how to come to the source line
> information from the dump:
> http://voneinem-windbg.blogspot.com/2007/03/creating-and-analyzing-minidumps-in-
net.html
>
> In the cases I've looked at for now it works very fine.

Good one! Yes, that's exactly the approach that I meant.

Oleg

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Open dumps in VS 2005

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